Sorry, but it really irritates me when the kids think they know better than the IT team.

Our job is to make the however-many-hundred computers in your school work for the however-many-thousand people that use them. If your school's network has been running for more than 2 or 3 years its very likely all the settings and programs on it have been tweaked over time so that its easiest for everyone to use.

For example, if you discover that you can make the screen go pink and set the font to 72pt it isn't because we forgot to disable setting XYZ. It's because students with vision imparements might need to change their settings so they can actually do the work in class.

Also, we don't watch what you're doing because we all get a massive kick out of moving your mouse or closing any stupid programs you are using that you shouldn't be. VNC or whatever monitoring software is on machines because the school has a legal duty of care to ensure that all the students are protected online and that you can't get into trouble or be victimised or exploited by people or programs on the Internet. If you start messing about with that software or changing how it works then it opens all sorts of cans of worms.

This is the same for proxies too. So you discover a proxy to get through the firewall and on to blocked sites - Cool. Now what if a 12 year old also uses this proxy and is going on some chat site where they are being groomed. Not so cool now is it?

Sad thing is, the IT team never knows a shit (I'm lucky and they actually do in my school)

You can't generalize that. Some schools have completely incompetent IT administrators. Other schools might have competent IT guys that are just too lazy.
In my school they don't even agree with their own policies. I've shown them how to get past our proxy and they know how to fix it, but they just congratulate me and (thankfully) never do anything about it and actually encourage others to try it themselves (only one other person in my class can do it though even though it's an IT school).

Sorry, but it really irritates me when the kids think they know better than the IT team.

Our job is to make the however-many-hundred computers in your school work for the however-many-thousand people that use them. If your school's network has been running for more than 2 or 3 years its very likely all the settings and programs on it have been tweaked over time so that its easiest for everyone to use.

For example, if you discover that you can make the screen go pink and set the font to 72pt it isn't because we forgot to disable setting XYZ. It's because students with vision imparements might need to change their settings so they can actually do the work in class.

Also, we don't watch what you're doing because we all get a massive kick out of moving your mouse or closing any stupid programs you are using that you shouldn't be. VNC or whatever monitoring software is on machines because the school has a legal duty of care to ensure that all the students are protected online and that you can't get into trouble or be victimised or exploited by people or programs on the Internet. If you start messing about with that software or changing how it works then it opens all sorts of cans of worms.

This is the same for proxies too. So you discover a proxy to get through the firewall and on to blocked sites - Cool. Now what if a 12 year old also uses this proxy and is going on some chat site where they are being groomed. Not so cool now is it?

Well, to be fair, a lot of schools don't really have a competent IT team. I remember I was doing some filming for a project in a Forrest Gump class and I was checking the tape in the camera and noticed that it was filled, for the full hour of the tape of our IT guy talking on his cellphone in his server dungeon, and it wasn't about anything relevant, he was talking to a friend for the first 30 minutes and the last 30 minutes was filled with him doing child support things ( very sad I'm sure ), I wouldn't be so annoyed by this if not for the fact that every time someone in our school tells our IT guy they have a problem he says, "Okay". and walks away. Not sure if he realizes that near everyone in our school uses Windows machines at their home where 80% of our computers and 100% of our laptops are macs. Herp derp. Our IT guy doesn't even manage our school districts blocking.

But really most of that was just me venting out how much I hate our IT guy, he's one of those guys who got an iPad RIGHT when it came out.

Sorry, but it really irritates me when the kids think they know better than the IT team.

Our job is to make the however-many-hundred computers in your school work for the however-many-thousand people that use them. If your school's network has been running for more than 2 or 3 years its very likely all the settings and programs on it have been tweaked over time so that its easiest for everyone to use.

For example, if you discover that you can make the screen go pink and set the font to 72pt it isn't because we forgot to disable setting XYZ. It's because students with vision imparements might need to change their settings so they can actually do the work in class.

Also, we don't watch what you're doing because we all get a massive kick out of moving your mouse or closing any stupid programs you are using that you shouldn't be. VNC or whatever monitoring software is on machines because the school has a legal duty of care to ensure that all the students are protected online and that you can't get into trouble or be victimised or exploited by people or programs on the Internet. If you start messing about with that software or changing how it works then it opens all sorts of cans of worms.

This is the same for proxies too. So you discover a proxy to get through the firewall and on to blocked sites - Cool. Now what if a 12 year old also uses this proxy and is going on some chat site where they are being groomed. Not so cool now is it?

I'm sorry but I think it's entirely healthy to dislike any institution watching monitoring/ controlling your activities. Not necessarily saying that the monitoring shouldn't be done, but I don't think it's a good thing for people to think "oh, thank goodness those nice people are watching my every action", and it's definitely not reasonable to hope this.

As far as the actual ethics about the monitoring schools do, I'm inclined to disagree with it. Obviously it has it's merits but just "well this makes things work more smoothly and makes people safe" aren't compelling reasons without addressing the individual privacy/ freedom aspect of the issue.

Mainly I'm worried about how easy it is to control and monitor people with the advent of computers. People seem to be making some very one-sided decisions, more or less "Well this will protect people, so it's a good idea". People of course have that idea with everything else, but generally it's hard enough to accomplish that somewhere along the line the person realizes that they treading all over peoples rights.

Guys, what do you think the preferable way to do a platformer is?
There are 3 ways which come to mind -

1. Tile based
2. Image based (one for the visuals, another colour coded one for collision, entities, triggers etc)
3. Brush based (custom binary format consisiting of various rectangles)

Tile based is by far the simplest to implement and develop for, but it's limited in that there isn't really any support for slopes. Image based is a pain to implement but allows a large variety when it comes to level design. Brush based could or could not allow sloped brushes.

Guys, what do you think the preferable way to do a platformer is?
There are 3 ways which come to mind -

1. Tile based
2. Image based (one for the visuals, another colour coded one for collision, entities, triggers etc)
3. Brush based (custom binary format consisiting of various rectangles)

Tile based is by far the simplest to implement and develop for, but it's limited in that there isn't really any support for slopes. Image based is a pain to implement but allows a large variety when it comes to level design. Brush based could or could not allow sloped brushes.

Guys, what do you think the preferable way to do a platformer is?
There are 3 ways which come to mind -

1. Tile based
2. Image based (one for the visuals, another colour coded one for collision, entities, triggers etc)
3. Brush based (custom binary format consisiting of various rectangles)

Tile based is by far the simplest to implement and develop for, but it's limited in that there isn't really any support for slopes. Image based is a pain to implement but allows a large variety when it comes to level design. Brush based could or could not allow sloped brushes.

I would like to post a demo of Iris. (44kb non installer ofc)http://www.mediafire.com/?qbd45zcsygbnpsw
There isn't any gameplay really and the world map sucks just so you know.
But it would be nice to know if you guys can run it on your computers.
And show the UI class and the loader. thanks.

I'm making my first game in python and I can't decide to handle game object attributes. The way I'm setting up the game data files, information will be stored in key-value pairs, eg health:1000. However I'm not sure how to represent this information programmically. For instance, I'm not sure whether to divide stuff into classes, such as "moving", "stationary", and "item", or to just have the content of the object define it's function. Furthermore, if I do divide it, which I'm leaning towards, I still don't know whether to let the content define function. By that I mean, should I specifically declare health, stength, bravery, etc in the class, or just rely on the data files? It seems more flexible to rely on the data files because I could easily give different objects different attributes, however, it seems dangerous because certain apparently necessary attributes like health could be left out...

I know how to make games in a C++ sort of way, where reflection isn't nearly as powerful, but I want to take advantage of python's strengths and features; I guess the word I'm looking for here is "pythonic"

I'm making my first game in python and I can't decide to handle game object attributes. The way I'm setting up the game data files, information will be stored in key-value pairs, eg health:1000. However I'm not sure how to represent this information programmically. For instance, I'm not sure whether to divide stuff into classes, such as "moving", "stationary", and "item", or to just have the content of the object define it's function. Furthermore, if I do divide it, which I'm leaning towards, I still don't know whether to let the content define function. By that I mean, should I specifically declare health, stength, bravery, etc in the class, or just rely on the data files? It seems more flexible to rely on the data files because I could easily give different objects different attributes, however, it seems dangerous because certain apparently necessary attributes like health could be left out...

I know how to make games in a C++ sort of way, where reflection isn't nearly as powerful, but I want to take advantage of python's strengths and features; I guess the word I'm looking for here is "pythonic"

Use NBT?

Edited:

What, who doesn't want to use a totally fucked up 'standard' that the creator didn't even follow?!

I'm away for the first few pages and come back to find out that WAYWO has become the Computer Illiteracy thread. (from Hw&Sw)

Anyhow I realized that I need to scrap my old new project and start a new new project that does what my old project and old new project were supposed to do. So what I'm working on is figuring out how to make any sense out of this shit and how to make it work and why I'm typing these GPI-damn long sentences.

I'm going to make a really simple platformer and make it more advanced as I progress. However, I can't decide whether I'll go with C# or C++. I've done some C++ before (really simple text-based console games) & some C# before (uh, some random game, was pretty simple). If I do it with C#, I know I could do it pretty easily but I want more of a challenge and learn a bit more advanced shit.

1. How hard is it to make a platformer for C++, is there any library for it?
2. Is there any other good library than XNA for C#? (for making games, naturally)

edit:
3. Is Visual Studio C#/C++ the best I can get for Windows? Express.

I'm going to make a really simple platformer and make it more advanced as I progress. However, I can't decide whether I'll go with C# or C++. I've done some C++ before (really simple text-based console games) & some C# before (uh, some random game, was pretty simple). If I do it with C#, I know I could do it pretty easily but I want more of a challenge and learn a bit more advanced shit.

1. How hard is it to make a platformer for C++, is there any library for it?
2. Is there any other good library than XNA for C#? (for making games, naturally)

edit:
3. Is Visual Studio C#/C++ the best I can get for Windows? Express.

Aren't you the guy who calimed everyone who belives in this 'html 5 bullshit' is an idiot and flash is the future not so long ago in the webdev waywo?
Edit: Oh yeah you are

Why the **** are you trying to make a webpage look like Flash? USE FLASH, IT'S THE GOD DAMN FUTURE. Everyone who believies in this "html5" is just plain dumb because in fact it can't do shit if you compare it to Flash CS5.

Microsoft would see us all under a corporation controlled standard. Open standards are what make the world of computing accessible to anyone. MP3 is a great example of how a corporation owned standard can fuck with everyone's fun.

I'm convinced you're a troll though, because only an imbecile would think that it's acceptable for browser manufacturers to define web standards.